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Physiognomy of Blogs

I'm reading "New Media, 1740-1915" (Ed. by L. Gitelman and G.B. Pingree) and I find it really amazing. I find really interesting Wendy Bellion essay "Head of State: Profiles and Politics in Jeffersonian America". Even if I have some doubt about the relation between political crisis of representative system and technologies of representation (at least in such a direct way) I was really fascinated by the physiognotrace. "Peale consistently decribed the profiles [obtained using the physiognotrace] as "perfectly correct" resemblances and attributed this quality to the procedures of self-operation and mechanical circumscription" Physiognotraces were machines used to self-draw the head silhouette using some kind of modified pantograph. What I find interesting is that the idea of correctness, likeness and accuracy seems to be granted from the autonomous use of technology. Technology can lie only if it's used by someone else. Once you can control technological mediation, technology is "innocent" and can be used to tell the truth. There's something that reming me how blogs are sometimes perceived.

posted by Luca @ 4/18/2005 09:46:00 AM